T1.1: Principles of Miracles

There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not “harder”
or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of
love are maximal.
Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is
their Source,Which is far beyond human evaluation.
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is
the love that inspires them. In this sense, everything that comes
from love is a miracle.
All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice
will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to
know.
Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They should not be
under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be
misguided.
Miracles are natural. When they do NOT occur something has gone
wrong.
Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.
Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that they are
performed by those who temporarily have more for those who
temporarily have less.
Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which
are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the
physical laws. They bring MORE love both to the giver AND the
receiver.
The use of miracles as spectacles to INDUCE belief is wrong; or,
better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really
used FOR and BY believers.
Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural
communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love
is received, and through miracles love is expressed.
Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order or
higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between
intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the other
creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make or create.
Miracles are both beginnings and endings. They thus alter the
temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which
seem to go back, but really go forward. They undo the past in the
present, and thus release the future.
Miracles bear witness to truth. They are convincing because they
arise from conviction.Without conviction they deteriorate
into magic, which is mindless, and therefore destructive; or rather,
the uncreative use of mind.
Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to
enable man to learn to use it constructively. Time is thus a
teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is no
longer useful in facilitating learning.
Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more
blessed to give than to receive.They simultaneously increase the
strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.
Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden shifts
into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality. That is
why they heal.
A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual can
render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The
doer recognizes his own and his neighbor’s inestimable worth
simultaneously.
Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation, because
the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls God created. Miracles
therefore rest on the laws of eternity, not of time.
Miracles reawaken the awareness that the Spirit, not the body, is
the altar of truth.This is the recognition that leads to the healing
power of the miracle.
Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through
miracles, man accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.
Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious
belief that darkness can HIDE. Man believes that what he cannot see
does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This
is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the
Spiritual eye.¹ The escape from darkness involves two stages:
1. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step usually
  entails fear.
2. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide, even if
  you COULD. This step brings ESCAPE from fear.
Miracles rearrange perception, and place the levels of perception
in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels, because sickness comes
from confusing the levels.

When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be
willing to enter into communion, but will also understand peace and
joy. Your commitment is not yet total, and that is why you still have
more to learn than to teach.When your equilibrium stabilizes, you will
be able to teach as much as you learn, which will give you the proper
balance. Meanwhile, remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you
remember this, you cannot avail yourselves of MY efforts, which ARE
limitless. Only eternity is real. Why not use the illusion of time
constructively?
Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead because he
made sickness and death himself, and can abolish both. YOU are a
miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator.
Everything else is only your own nightmare, and does not exist.
Only the Creations of Light are real.
Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which,
when completed, is the Atonement. This process works all the time,
and in all the dimensions of time.

I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to
begin.When you offer a miracle unto any of my brothers, you do it unto
YOURSELF and me. The reason YOU come before ME is that I do not need
miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case you fail
temporarily. The purpose of my part in the Atonement is the canceling
out of all lacks of love which men could not otherwise correct. The
word “sin” should be changed to “lack of love,” because “sin” is a
man-made word with threat connotations which he made up himself. No
REAL threat is involved anywhere. Nothing is gained by frightening
yourselves, and it is very destructive to do so.
Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. “Atoning” really means
“undoing.”The undoing of fear is an essential part of the
Atonement value of miracles.

The purpose of the Atonement is to restore EVERYTHING to you; or
rather, to restore it to your AWARENESS. You were GIVEN everything
when you were
created, just as everyone was. When you have been restored to the
recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the
Atonement yourself. As you share MY inability to tolerate lack of love
in yourself and others, you MUST join the Great Crusade to correct it.
The slogan for the Crusade is “Listen, learn, and DO; ” – Listen to my
voice, learn to undo error, and DO something to correct it.

The power to work miracles BELONGS to you. I will provide the
opportunities to do them, but YOU must be ready and willing, since you
are already able. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability,
since conviction really comes through accomplishment. The ability is
the potential; the achievement is its expression; and the Atonement is
the Purpose.
A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to ALL my
brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.

The disciples were specifically told to be physicians of the Lord and
to heal others. They were also told to HEAL THEMSELVES, and were
promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is
the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have
professed me. “Heaven and earth shall pass away” simply means that
they will not continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is
the Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away because Light is
eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and
wholly loving. This is how a man MUST think of himself in his heart,
because this is what he IS.
Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of
consciousness.

Miracles come from the below or subconscious level. Revelations come
from the above or superconscious level. The conscious level is in
between, and reacts to either sub- or superconscious impulses in
varying ratios. Consciousness is the level which engages in the world,
and is capable of responding to both. Having no impulses from itself,
and being primarily a mechanism for inducing response, it can be very
wrong.

Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and
fear. It represents the original form of
communication between God and His Souls, involving an extremely
personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man tries to find in
physical relationships. Physical closeness CANNOT achieve this. The
subconscious impulses properly induce miracles, which are genuinely
interpersonal, and result in real closeness to others. This can be
misunderstood by a PERSONALLY willful consciousness as impulses toward
physical gratification.

Revelation unites Souls directly with God. Miracles unite minds
directly with each other. Neither emanates from consciousness, but
both are EXPERIENCED there. This is essential, since consciousness is
the state which induces action, though it does NOT inspire it. Man is
free to believe what he chooses, and what he DOES attests to what he
believes. The deeper levels of the subconscious ALWAYS contain the
impulse to miracles, but man is free to fill its more superficial
levels, which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this
world, and to identify himself with them. This results in DENYING
himself access to the miracle level underneath. In his actions, then,
his relationships also become superficial, and miracle-inspired
relating becomes impossible.
Miracles are a way of EARNING release from fear.

Revelation induces a state in which fear has ALREADY been abolished.
Miracles are thus a means, and revelation is an end. Miracles do not
depend on revelation; they INDUCE it. Revelation is intensely
personal, and cannot actually be translated into conscious content at
all. That is why any attempt to describe it in words is usually
incomprehensible. Revelation induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the
other hand, induce ACTION. Miracles are more useful now, because of
their interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working
miracles is more important because freedom from fear cannot be thrust
upon you.
Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring His
Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny
body-identification and affirm Soul-identification. By perceiving
the Spirit, they adjust the levels and
see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center,
where Souls can communicate directly.
Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank God for
what he really is. The Children of God are very holy, and the miracle
honors their holiness. God’s Creations never lose their holiness,
although it can be hidden. The miracle uncovers it, and brings it into
the light where it belongs. Holiness can never be really hidden in
darkness, but man can deceive himself about it.This illusion makes him
fearful, because he knows in his heart it IS an illusion, and he exerts
enormous efforts to establish its reality. The miracle sets reality
where it belongs. Eternal reality belongs only to the Soul, and the
miracle acknowledges only the truth. It thus dispels man’s illusions
about himself, and puts him in communion with himself AND God.
Christ inspires all miracles, which are really intercessions. They
intercede for man’s holiness, and make his perceptions holy. By
placing him beyond the physical laws, they raise him into the sphere
of celestial order. In THIS order, man IS perfect.

The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind NEEDS
Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the
mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper
function of the mind, and corrects its errors.
Miracles honor man BECAUSE he is lovable. They dispel illusions
about him, and perceive the Light in him. They thus atone for his
errors by freeing him from his own nightmares. They release him from
a prison in which he has imprisoned HIMSELF, and by freeing his mind
from illusions, they restore his sanity. Man’s mind CAN be possessed
by illusions, but his Spirit is eternally free. If a mind perceives
without love it perceives an empty shell, and is unaware of the
Spirit within it. But the Atonement restores the Soul to its proper
place. The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable.
Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning for lack, they
establish perfect protection.The strength of the Soul leaves no room
for intrusions. The forgiven are filled with the Soul, and they
forgive in return. It is the duty of the released to release
their brothers.

The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement.Those released by Christ must
join in releasing their brothers, for this is the Plan of the
Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds which serve the Spirit
unite with Christ for the salvation, or release, of all God’s
Creations.
Miracles are expressions of love, but it does NOT follow that they
will always have observable effects. I am the only one who can
perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You
have a ROLE in the Atonement, which I will dictate TO you. Ask ME
which miracles you should perform. This spares you exhaustion,
because you will act under direct communication.
Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but
Christ-guidance is personal. The impersonal nature of miracles is an
essential ingredient, because this enables ME to control their
distribution. Christ-guidance leads to the highly PERSONAL experience
of Revelation. This is why it involves PERSONAL choice. A guide does
NOT control, but he DOES direct, leaving the following up to you.
“Lead us not into temptation” means “guide us out of our own errors.”
“Take up thy cross and follow me” means “recognize your errors and
choose to abandon them by following my guidance.”

Remember that error cannot really threaten truth, which can ALWAYS
withstand it. ONLY the error is really vulnerable. You are free to
establish your kingdom where you see fit, but the right choice is
inevitable if you remember this:–

“The Soul is in a state of grace forever.
Man’s reality is ONLY his Soul.
Therefore man is in a state of grace forever.”

Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus uproots the
REAL source of fear. Whenever God’s reassurances are experienced as
threat, it is ALWAYS because you are defending misplaced and
misdirected loyalty. That is what projection always involves. Error
is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES
imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they
have ALREADY made.This makes them vulnerable to the distortions of
others, since their OWN perception of themselves is distorted. The
miracle worker can ONLY bless, and thus undoes their distortions,
and frees them from prison.
Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all
levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct
delineation of intra – and interpersonal boundaries. As a result,
the doer’s perceptions are aligned with truth as God created it.
A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking by
me. It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception, and
reorganizing it properly. This places man under the Atonement
principle, where his perception is healed. Until this has occurred,
revelation of the Divine order is impossible.
The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because what It
perceives IS true. It perceives both the Creations of God and the
creations of man. Among the creations of man, It can also separate
the true from the false by Its ability to perceive totally, rather
than selectively. It thus becomes the proper instrument for reality
testing, which always involves the necessary distinction between the
false and the true.
The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies
error as false, or unreal. This is the same as saying that by
perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears.

Darkness is lack of light, as sin is lack of love. It has no unique
properties of its own. It is an example of the “scarcity” fallacy,
from which ONLY error can proceed. Truth is always abundant. Those who
perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no need for
driven behavior of ANY kind.
The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and mine. It is a
way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them. The specialness
of God’s Sons does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL
my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of
anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the
whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its
relationships. Ultimately, every member of the family of God must
return. The miracle calls him to return, because it blesses and
honors him even though he may be
absent in spirit.

“God is not mocked” is not a warning, but a reassurance on this point.
God WOULD be mocked if any of His Creations lacked holiness. The
Creation IS whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness.
Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects,
or atones for, the faulty perception of lack anywhere.

Here we begin to make the fundamental distinction between miracles and
projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and will also
determine the kind of response that is evoked. Behavior IS response,
so that the question “response to what?” becomes crucial. Since
stimuli are identified through perception, you first perceive the
stimulus and then behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:

“As ye perceive,
So shall ye behave.”

The Golden Rule asks you to behave toward others as you would have
them behave toward you. This means that the perception of BOTH must be
accurate. The Golden Rule is the rule for appropriate behavior. You
cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive accurately, because
appropriate behavior DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence
of level confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing, and
therefore in variability in behavioral appropriateness. Since you and
your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive
both, so you will behave toward both. The way to perceive for Golden
Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your OWN holiness,
and perceive the holiness of others.

The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because
love and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be
undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a
confusion of levels. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in “fate,”
or level confusion.That is why the Bible says,“There IS no death,” and
why I demonstrated that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law
by REINTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers
only protection to man. It is those who have not yet “changed their
minds” who entered the “hellfire” concept into it.

I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to
whatever extent he permits it. YOUR witnessing demonstrates YOUR
belief, and thus strengthens it. Those who witness for me are
expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the
belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned
BELONGS to them.
A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing man
from his misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation and lack.

Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion
and abundance. Whatever is true and real is eternal, and CANNOT change
or BE changed. The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY
perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The
ONLY limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two
masters.

The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul
creates along the line of its own Creation. If it does not freely
elect to do so, it retains its creative POTENTIAL, but places itself
under tyrannous rather than genuinely authoritative control. As a
result it imprisons, because such are the dictates of tyrants.To
change your mind means to place it at the disposal of TRUE Authority.

The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by
Christ in His service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result
of choosing to follow Him. ALL shallow roots must be uprooted, because
they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow
roots can be DEEPENED, and thus made to hold, is one of the
distortions on which the REVERSAL of the Golden Rule rests. As these
false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily
experienced as unstable. However, the fact is that NOTHING is less
stable than an orientation that is upside down. Nor can anything which
holds it that way be really conducive to greater stability.
Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being one, this
state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without
the awareness of the miracle worker himself. The impersonal nature of
miracles is because the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations
with their Creator.
The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ, and
the acceptance of His Atonement. The mind is then in a state of
grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and
the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he becomes your
brother.
A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you do not even
know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of
which you are not even aware.That is not your concern.The miracle
will always bless YOU.

The miracles you are NOT asked to perform have not lost their
value.They are still expressions of your own state of grace, but the
ACTION aspect of the miracle should be Christ-controlled because of
His complete awareness of the Whole Plan. The impersonal nature of
miracle-mindedness ensures YOUR grace, but only Christ is in a
position to know where grace can be BESTOWED.
Miracle-mindedness means miracle-readiness. Readiness means that you
should always keep your perceptions straight, so that you will
ALWAYS be ready, willing and able. These are the essentials for
“listen, learn and do.” You must be READY to listen, WILLING to
learn, and ABLE to do. Only the last is involuntary, because it is
the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. The
other two, which are the VOLUNTARY aspects of miracle-mindedness,
ARE up to you.
Awe is an inappropriate response to miracles. Revelation is
literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable
love. Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is
perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriate for
miracles because a state of awe is worshipful. It implies that one
of a lesser order stands before a greater one. This is the case
ONLY when a Soul stands before its Creator. Souls are perfect
creations, and experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator
of perfection.

The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among
equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe implies
inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder
brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and a
reasonable amount of obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also
entitled to love because he IS a brother, and also to devotion if he
is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is
nothing about me that YOU cannot attain. I have nothing that does not
come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have
NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is
only a POTENTIAL in you.

“No man cometh unto the Father but by me” is among the most
misunderstood statements in the Bible. It does NOT mean that I am in
any way separate or different from you EXCEPT IN TIME, which does not
really exist at all. Actually, the quotation is more meaningful if it
is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded
along the vertical, man stands below me and I stand below God. In the
process of “rising up,” I AM higher. This is because, without me, the
distance between God and man would be too great for you to encompass.

I bridge the distance as an elder brother to man on the one hand, and
as a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me
in charge of the Sonship, which I can render complete only to the
extent to which I can SHARE it. This may appear to contradict the
statement “I and my Father are one,” but there are still separate
parts in the statement, in recognition that the Father is greater.
(The original statement was “are of one kind”). The Holy Spirit is the
Bringer of Revelations. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me,
because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to the
revelation-readiness of my brothers. I can thus BRING down to them
more than they can DRAW down to themselves.
The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not
involve this type of communication because they are TEMPORARY
communication devices. When man returns to his original form of
communication with God, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit
mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from
God to man open for revelation. Revelation is not reciprocal. It is
always FROM God TO man. The miracle IS reciprocal because it involves
equality.
The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. In
the longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of the true
equality of all the members of the Sonship appears to involve
almost endless time. However, the sudden shifts from horizontal to
vertical perception which the miracle entails introduces an
interval from which the doer and the receiver BOTH emerge much
farther along in time than they would otherwise have been.

The miracle thus has the unique property of shortening time by
rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is NO
relationship between the time a miracle TAKES and the time it COVERS.
It substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years.
It does this by the underlying recognition of perfect equality and
holiness between the doer and the receiver on which the miracle rests.

We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a
process of COLLAPSING it, and thus abolishing certain INTERVALS within
it. It does this, however, WITHIN the larger temporal sequence. It
establishes an out-of-pattern time interval which is NOT under the
usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By collapsing
time it literally saves time, much as daylight saving time does. It
rearranges the distribution of light.
The miracle is the only device which man has at his immediate
disposal for controlling time. Only revelation TRANSCENDS time,
having nothing to do with time at all.

The miracle is much like the body, in that both are learning aids
which aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When
the Soul’s original state of direct communication is reached, neither
the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While he believes he is
in a body, however, man can choose between loveless and miraculous
channels of expression. He can make an empty shell, but he CANNOT
express nothing at all. He can wait, delay, paralyze himself,
reduce his creativity to almost nothing, and even introduce a
developmental arrest or even a regression. But he CANNOT abolish his
creativity. He can destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his
potential.

Man was NOT created by his own free will alone. Only what HE creates is
his to decide. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait
on time any longer than is necessary.Time can waste as well as be
wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor
gladly, because he recognizes that every collapse of time brings all men
closer to the ultimate RELEASE from time, in which the Son and the
Father ARE one.

Equality does not imply homogeneity NOW. When everyone recognizes that
he has everything, individual contributions to the Sonship will no
longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been completed, ALL talents
will be shared by ALL the Sons of God. God is NOT partial. All His
children have His total Love, and ALL his gifts are freely given to
everyone alike.“Except ye become as little children” means that, unless
you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the
real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.

You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. You never
really WANTED peace before, so there was no point in being told how to
achieve it. No learning is acquired by anyone unless he wants to learn
it, and believes in some way that he NEEDS it.While the concept of lack
does not exist in the Creation of God, it is VERY apparent in the
creations of man. It is, in fact, the essential difference. A need
implies lack by definition. It involves the recognition that you would
be better off in a state which is somehow different from the one you are
in.

Until the “separation,” which is a better term than the “fall,” nothing
was lacking.This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not
deprived himself, he would never have experienced them. After the
separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for
human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but
behavior itself is not a Divine
attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior. The belief that he
COULD be better off is the reason why man has this mechanism at his
disposal.

Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he
establishes for himself. His hierarchy, in turn, depends on his
perception of what he IS; that is, what he LACKS. A sense of
separation from God is the ONLY lack he really needs to correct. This
sense of separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted
his perception of truth, and thus perceived HIMSELF as lacking. The
concept of ANY sort of need hierarchy arose because, having made this
fundamental error, he had already fragmented himself into levels with
different needs. As he integrates HE becomes one, and his needs become
one accordingly.

Unified need produces unified action because it produces a lack of
ambivalence.The concept of a need hierarchy, a corollary to the
original error that man can be separated from God, requires correction
at its own level, before the error of perceiving levels at all can be
corrected. Man cannot behave effectively while he operates at split
levels. However, while he does, correction must be introduced from the
bottom UP. This is because he now operates in space, where concepts
such as “up” and “down” are meaningful. Ultimately, space is as
meaningless as time.The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF.

The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his
UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. He can never control the
effects of fear himself because he MADE fear, and believes in what he
made. In attitude, then, though NOT in content, he resembles his own
Creator,Who has perfect faith in His creations BECAUSE He created
them. Belief in a creation produces its existence.That is why a man
can believe in what no-one else thinks is true. It is true for him
because it was made BY him.

Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception. The more
truly creative devote their efforts to correcting perceptual
distortions. The neurotic devotes his to compromise. The psychotic
tries to escape by establishing the certain truth of
his own errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary means,
because he is more consistent in his own denial of truth. The miracle,
however, makes no such distinctions. It corrects errors BECAUSE they
are errors. Thus, the next point to remember about miracles is:
The miracle makes NO distinction among degrees of misperception. It
is a device for perception-correction, effective quite apart from
either the degree or the direction of the error. This is its TRUE
indiscriminateness.

Christ-controlled miracles are selective ONLY in the sense that they
are directed towards those who can use them for THEMSELVES. Since this
makes it inevitable that they will extend them to others, a strong
chain of Atonement is welded. However, Christ-control takes no account
at all of the magnitude of the miracle itself, because the concept of
size exists in a plane that is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims
at RESTORING the awareness of reality it would hardly be useful if it
were bound by the laws which govern the error it aims to correct. Only
man makes this kind of mistake. It is an example of the foolish
consistency which his own false beliefs have engendered.

The power and strength of man’s creative will must be understood
before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and relinquished.
It is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation.While the
miscreation is NECESSARILY believed in by its maker, it does not exist
at all at the level of true creation.
The miracle compares what man has made with the higher level
creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true and rejecting the
discordant as false. All aspects of fear are untrue because they DO
NOT exist at the higher creative levels, and therefore do not exist
at all.To whatever extent a man is willing to submit his beliefs to
this test, to that extent are his perceptions corrected.

In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along the
following lines;

“If perfect love casts out fear, And if fear exists,
Then there is NOT perfect love.”

But

“Only perfect love REALLY exists. If there IS fear,
It creates a state which does not exist.”

Believe this, and you WILL be free. Only God can establish this
solution and THIS faith IS His gift.

The term “Spiritual eye” is later replaced by the Holy Spirit and the physical eye becomes the ego. The emphasis on the two ways of seeing, however, remains throughout.↩

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T1.1: Principles of Miracles

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